UPDATE : DAY 210 REVEG DAY 63 REFLOWER DAY 12
@SmknVTEC : Yeah buddy, I take this stretching due to flowering and HPS issues seriously.
@Brazyjay : not quite. The symptoms are disappearing/far less, but still I pick an occasional leave of the plant with the same P def symptoms. The soil temperatures however reached an all time low 9C/48F this week.
This must be one of the coolest grows on GC
It's been a while since I've posted an update here.
I've been getting a lot of 'the page cannot be displayed' errors the last week for GC.
And I've been busy combating what appeared to be nute def. related issues.
As it turns out the pH of my soil is shit.
The soil runoff is pH 5.
The tapwater I use is pH 8.
The tapwater+nutes I use sometimes is pH 7.
So I'm guessing the buffering effect of the soil is not on my side anymore.
I suspect H+ ions from being released from the soil somehow, probably due to a chemical or biological 'decompositioning' process.
So I've hit the pots with 50 grams of chalk each. It's the stuff they got from soft-stones and not clampshells so it's the good stuff for my purpose.
This should kick a nice dent in the pH problem.
I have about 6 weeks left to grow so whatever I do must be effective soon.
The reasons I started checking things are :
-red/purple petioles, I've seen them for months and I despise of them
-the new growth being way to yellow, not good
-the occasional dead leave at the bottom showing P def signs. allthough this symptom seems to be disappearing.
Let's see if I can improve things.
Here look at this pictures and see what pH 5 does for my plants :
plant 1:
http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/8823/p1010002mi1.jpg
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1091/p1010004bn3.jpg
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6829/p1010006jt6.jpg
plant 2:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4907/p1010008gn0.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/179/p1010009qh1.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/9348/p1010013fc8.jpg
plant 3:
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/4740/p1010017oy8.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4061/p1010019gb5.jpg
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/8725/p1010021av4.jpg
And then one last funny thing.
The mysterious drops of water on my plants are back.
This is the third time in all those 210 days I see some of them.
I have no idea where I got these :
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6362/p1010022hw6.jpg